my 4g 20gb ipod impressions

I received my new 4th gen ipod yesterday, 20gb model. The dock should arrive today.

This thing is really cool. I had a creative labs nomad jukebox Zen about a year ago and figured that mp3 players weren't that great. Since the zen was the latest ipod competitor/clone at the time I figured the ipod wasn't too much different from one of these. I was really mistaken.

First of all the ipod is a lot smaller than I thought it would be from the pictures (never held one or seen one in person up close, only across a lecture hall a few times). I think the wheel is really cool, how you just hover your thumb lightly across it instead of actually turning it. I also like how you can rate songs to put them in your favorites list.

I got this as part of the cram and jam promotion with my new powerbook, so the total cost was only about $65 once I get my rebate. I also got free laser engraving of my name and phone number. The only thing is that back surface is chrome-like and you can see every single little bit of oil from your skin or fingerprints. Seeing how that's my only complaint I think that's pretty good.

Well actually I do wish it would interface seamlessly across windows and mac without having to reformat. However, I dont see myself using my pc with the ipod much at all. The only use my pc will be getting any time soon is for doom 3!

Overall: 9/10
Of course I can't compare this to the previous generation ipods but now I can see why these things are so popular.

if your ipods formatted for windows, it'll work with your mac - not the other way around though. (i think)
but on your mac if its formatted for windows it shows on your desktop as a disk drive - no super-cool ipod icon..